Thursday, December 24, 2015

Mayor de Blasio becomes the Grinch arriving at Christmas to steal and shrink the public's libraries while disguised not so very credibly in a faux Santa Claus suit.

Noticing New York returns here to its now annual tradition. It's the cusp of a new year and the winter solstice has arrived so it is once more that time when, we reflect with holiday spirit about . . .

In modern holiday tradition there is a fellow who arrives with stealth on Christmas Eve to surprise everyone as he makes the night the occasion for his mean-spirited takings. He is that anti-Santa Clause, the Grinch, conceived by Dr. Suess.

This year our Mayor de Blasio has squeezed himself into the Grinch's faux Santa Claus costume to play that role by launching a sell-off and shrinkage of New York City Libraries with the sale and shrinkage (down to just 42%) of the Brooklyn Heights central destination library. No doubt collapsing his 6'5" frame into such a tiny costume involved de Blasio shrinking his heart (to quote Dr. Susss) to to at least "three sizes too small," probably considerably less than 42% the size of a normal generous library-loving New Yorker's.

When de Blasio spoke as a candidate wanting our votes there was no mistake that he was specifically including the Brooklyn Heights Library when calling for a halt to these sales and shrinkage because he mentioned it by name in his list.

In the videos linked to below you can see candidate de Blasio truthfully saying at that time:

“It’s public land and public facilities and public value under
threat. . . and once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain,
real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these
valuable properties”

What's especially frightening is how this sale and shrinkage is considered to be the first of many more library sales under de Blasio. So Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson told the City Council at
its hearing about the Brooklyn Heights sale the sale is considered to be a "model" for
transactions underway with respect to libraries throughout the city, not
just for other libraries in her BPL system, but also for Queens and the
NYPL. Then, at the BPL trustee meeting the Tuesday before the City Council vote, the trustees applauding this sell-off and shrinkage were reminded how sale of this library was chosen as a “demonstration” for what was possible. They were told that this was a “huge turning point for the library system” and “across the city in general” with Johnson `pioneering’ the future of libraries.

It's ironic that this taking from the public comes right at Christmas, but not necessarily unintended. Those pushing for controversial over-development in this city have their own tradition of scheduling advancement of these public encroachments for holidays, for times when they think the public will be least able to respond and pay attention, August vacation time, Thanksgiving and yes. . . . Christmas and New Years.

Mayor de Balsio's Grinching with his Deputy Mayor for development, Alicia Glen, adopting this Bloomberg library sale and shrinkage as "her own," and by implication all the envisioned future library sales, to "push it across the finish line" falls into our lap to bemoan in what has been a Noticing New York tradition.

Alistair Sim, perhaps the very best ever to play Scrooge. On left, Scrooge the epitome of a miser at the outset of the film. On right, the reformed Scrooge, now a model of kindness and generosity.

Since 2009, Noticing New York has annually offered a stocktaking of the
decisions we are making in the public sphere that make it appear that
we are veering off to a reality where a select few of our population
revering money and accumulating “wealth” count for almost everything
while the rest of us are treated with increasingly less regard. I’ve
done this in the context of two other traditional Yuletide tales, both taking
place in critical part on Christmas Eve, and both essentially the same
story in many respects: Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” about the reformation of the miser Scrooge and Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Both these stories frame the importance of free will and choice in
terms of alternative possible realities, in order to contrast decisions
about the bunching up of wealth and treasure with the benefit and spirit
of shared community and giving.

In "It's a Wonderful Life": on left Lionel Barrymore (who played Scrooge in annual radio broadcasts) playing the Scrooge-like Henry Potter and on right Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey, the banker with friends who fends off succumbing to the Potter world

One matter these annual reflections has always tuned
to is the way that Forest City Ratner’s takeover of a swath of Brooklyn
constitutes a concentration of wealth and control that’s analogous to
the way that in “It’s a Wonderful Life” the communally shared town of Bedford Falls became Pottersville
in the alternate reality where unchallenged power was allowed to
accumulate in the hands of Henry F. Potter, the bad town banker. The
unfortunate news to report this year with respect to Forest City Ratner
is that its spreading power and influence in New York is continuing to
grow like Potter’s did in that alternate reality. . .

An example of exactly what this transformation of our world means can be seen in the way we de Blasio, and Council Member Steve Levin as his delivery instrument to override the wishes of the community, are gifting the library this Christmas to developer David Kramer and his Hudson Companies. They are valuing the library not from the perspective of the public, but only from the developer's.

CLICK TO ENLARGE (something you can't do with a library)- A gift to developer David Kramer (in suit) under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade XMass tree this year, the Brooklyn Heights Library, sold for less than the price of a vacant lot, courtesy of Mayor Bill de Blasio, The Brooklyn Heights Association, and Councilman Steve Levin. Others were involved pushing for this sale, like Saint Ann's. Kramer here was getting some elf-help from the construction union whom he has never treated well. The union reversed positions of the public good of the sale when Kramer made some feeble work place safety concessions, sad for them and unwise in that unions wanting to reverse waning support from the public should seek to do so by supporting the public.

It is perhaps crass to try to talk about such an important and democratic and cultural institution as a library in purely financial terms but the Brooklyn Heights Library, substantially enlarged and fully upgraded at considerable public expense and sacrifice, would cost more than $120 million to replace. It represents an accumulated investment of our tax dollars over the years. Yet, the de Blasio/Levin sale of the library insistently views the library only from the vantage of the developer: The library will be sold to the developer for less than the price of a vacant lot. The sale, a significant public loss, would net the city perhaps less than $25 million. . . Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson told her board the net is to be some unspecified amount appreciably below $40 million, but we think her math obviously and deliberately overstates even this small as yet unspecified figure.

What is a library such as this worth? Last year we quoted from Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol.” I I think if fitting to return to a part of the exchange between Scrooge and his nephew again this year:

Nephew:Oh
I think there are many things from which I've derived some good, by
which I have not profited financially, I dare say. There is more in life
than money, Uncle.

Scrooge:Humbug to that! More in life than money! Humbug!

So, until we teach him better, we'll have to let de Blasio drift, keeping the season in his "Humbug" developer-gifts-come-first fashion. For the rest of us, let's all be blessed, every one of us, in knowing that what we value is so much more important and meaningful and in our collective commitment and New Year's resolution to fight for a future where those values will once more be respected.

About Me

NOTICING NEW YORK & NATIONAL NOTICE are both independent entities managed by Michael D. D. White of Hop-Skip Enterprises. Michael D. D. White is an attorney, urban planner and former government public finance and development official. *** Noticing New York covers New York development and associated politics. National Notice covers national policy and economic issues *** Contact: MichaelDDWhite(at)gmail.com